Scientists Invent Real ‘Spider-Man’ Suit

It may now be possible for everyone to be a bit more like Spider-Man, just by donning a SpiderSense suit built by Victor Mateevitsi and his team at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

The SpiderSense suit is designed to help the wearer have a keener sense of what is going on all around. Mateevitsi explained the correlation to the fictitious comicbook hero, stating that "when someone is punching Spider-Man, he feels the sensation and can avoid it," and that their suit features "the same concept."

The suit has small robotic arms packaged in modules which are equipped with microphones. These microphones send out and pick up ultrasonic reflections from objects close by.

When the ultrasound detects someone (or something) moving closer to the microphone, the small robotic arms respond by putting a little pressure on the person's body.

All in all, there are seven modules distributed across the suit, giving the wearer an almost-perfect 360 degree ultrasound coverage.

In the future, Mateevitsi and his team hope that the SpiderSense suit could help blind people find their way around more easily.